[IRON GAUNTLET 2017] Bifrost

[Legionare]

Prologue

 

Ducking behind a corner Augustine couldn’t help the feeling taking over his mind. It wasn’t fear for he didn’t know it, but it still enclosed his chest in it and made his heart heavy. His brothers had forsaken the light of the emperor. The Vipers on the planet of Bifrost were split into single marines leading Platoons from the imperial guard. The solitude from his brothers had given Augustine time, time to think about the happenings within his chapter. And now he knew, he knew about the secrets and lies of his superiors who played the role of Emperor’s loyal sons, but in truth were plotting against him.

Now he only needed to get this knowledge to the Inquisitor Staga who had been fighting alongside them ever since the Taidr Incident. But the problem was that he couldn’t trust anyone, as there was no way of telling how deep the rot in his chapter had already gotten. If only the damned battles would cease for a single day he could discreetly get to Staga. But no.

 

For 6 months, 6 long months, had the campaign dragged on. Augustine had grudgingly started to admire his enemies during the campaign. He, like many of his brethren, hadn’t realized how effective fighting forces the bifrost huscarl regiments were, or at least before he was fighting against them. But they still were treasonous dogs for forsaking the light of the emperor and turning to dark powers.

 

Still he couldn’t say he was surprised. It wasn’t the weakness of the ordinary mortals’ mind that worried him. The minds of his brothers were the ones he worried about. At first it was only a thin conception that something might be something else than what it seemed within his chapter, but now he was sure. His own chapter, the venerable Viper Legion, was partially, maybe even fully, fallen to the ruinious powers. He needed to get his proof about the fact to the inquisitor fighting alongside them, but he couldn’t just straight up walk to him, as he held no hope that the fallen members of his chapters would allow that.

 

They already were aware about his thoughts and would thus most likely follow his every step. He could tell it from the nightmares that plagued him. After they had advanced to the largest city on the planet, Bifrost prime, his dreams had gotten even worse. Now even as he was awake, some distant whispers lurked on the darkest corners of his mind.

 

“Master Augustine, your next orders?”

 

The corporal had woken Augustine from his thoughts. In his mind he cursed Damned nightmares making my mind unfocused on a moment like this. This is a warzone for Emperor’s sake.

 

“Prepare to move, we are to advance along this street. Be vigilant for marksmen”

Then suddenly he saw it. An ancient contemptor dreadnought soaked in blood walking right towards them. In a blink of an eye he accessed the situation. The contemptor had come from the next crossing of the road they were supposed to advance on, so it was about 50 meters from them. The plaza they stood in offered very little cover with the exeption of houses surrounding them. Running was useless, they had to kill it there before it could get to them.

 

“All squads open fire to towards that walker.”

 

He was almost proud of the guardsmen he commanded. Without any hesitation they opened fire and blasted the dreadnought with all that they got. Leman Russ’ battle cannon roared, and the autocannons fired away. Even as the countless shells hit the dreadnought it refused to halt it’s advance. No matter how many times a lasgun hit it’s massive body, or a bolt round exploded at it’s forehead, the beast advanced.

 

On the top of a ruined house just above Augustine, Librarian minor Marcian Rubicon watched as the situation unfolded. You think this’ll turnout the same as when you were charged by an onager back in Taidr Augustine? Sadly it doesn’t

By focusing the powers of his mind Marcian shook the minds of the guardsmen around Augustine. One by one the terrifying visions he implanted to their minds made them drop their weapons and run. As a desperate attempt to rally the guardsmen Augustin drew his power sword and defiantly held it high. However it wasn’t enough to stop the hand of the dreadnought, resulting in Augustine being crushed under it.

 

BIFROST

 

I

As Corvo Lupes, commander of the Fire team Lupes arrived at the plaza, his first thoughts were how clear it was. It was nothing but a square encircled by block houses, although it did have a scorched leman russ and tens of dead guardsmen in it.

“Har you keep an eye on that right side and Januc on the left side. We don’t want to get ambushed on a killing zone like this. Understood?”

“Affirmative”, the two marines answered in unison before spreading out.

The remaining three marines advanced on a V-formation towards the scorched Leman Russ on the dead center of the plaza. Only just before arriving at the Leman Russ they saw how five marines took of their camo cloaks and stood up. The foremost member of the second group took a step forwards and spoke:

“Fire team Gladier reporting in. I trust you have our orders?”

“Yes, we are to move southeast from here to meet up with Inquisitor Staga.” Corvo answered to the other fire team leader.

“Understood”

“Oh and Jan,… It’s nice to see you” Corvo said, smirking under his helmet.

“Indeed it is Corvo” Jan answered

 

While advancing through the rubble the two fire teams took turns covering each other, answering to the occasional autogun round with few sharp and accurate bolt rounds that left nothing alive. It had been 6 months since they deployed to the planet and only recently the enemy had started to show signs of running out of men. It was exactly for this reason Staga had dared to advance behind enemy lines to gather intelligence about the location of Brisus, the leader of Traitors, both astartes and mortal men.

 

Like always the marines advanced in complete radio silence, only talking when it was absolutely necessary and even then using laconic way of speaking. This lack of banter freed every bit of the marines’ mind to the task at hand. This time to the spotting of snipers. After thirty slow minutes and six dead snipers they finally arrived at the position Staga was in. It was nothing fancy, a well hid position inside a ruined café.

The marines had advanced with such stealth that Even Staga noticed them only once they were right upon him and his acolytes.

 

“Inquisitor Staga fire teams Lupes and Gladius report to duty as requested” Corvo said standing in attention.

The Inquisitor answered by watching the marines with a troubled expression in his face.

“Why do you think such formalities are necessary here marine? We are behind their lines for crying out loud so I’d really appreciate if you wouldn’t reveal our position immediately.” Then the Inquisitor turned while continuing to banter “I mean for Fugs sake”.

 

Jan stepped forwards to the inquisitor and spoke with his ever so formal voice

 

“We’re truly sorry Inquisitor. What are your orders?” Then he stepped back to the position he had originally stood in.

 

“Ah yes the orders” Staga answered strolling back and forth. “Right now on the second floor of the block house right across the street is the command post of the lieutenant Harrian Krain, on of the most high ranking traitor officers on the city. I want you to go there and capture him.”

 

Within his helmet Corvo wished he could shoot the inquisitor right then and there. Just because of him they had lost many good men on Taidr and now he had the audacity to ask them to capture an enemy lieutenant alive even though they didn’t even know what he looked like. Damned fool

But then he pushed those thought off his mind and answered

 

“Understood, we are allowed to begin operation when ready?”

 

“Most certainly yes”

 

II

It hadn’t taken them long to plan out the raid. Corvo would leave Har and Januc, the best shots of the group as marksmen to the second floor of the the café. The rest, he, Leo and Zeno would close on the building from a side alley, whereas the whole of fire team Gladius would strike in right from the main door. Corvo knew their plan would work, because it always did.

 

It took them a quarter hour to get to that side alley unnoticed. Luckily for them the enemy had only one guard whose neck was silently slit by Corvo.

 

“Everyone in position” Corvo whispered to the Vox. As an answer to that Jan’s fire team rushed out of their cover and through the main door of the enemy building. The enemies inside were caught of guard, first pair of them falling to the ground right next to the main door. One unlucky and confused guard knelt right on the other side of the wall Corvo and his men would blow up to get in, just as they prepared to enter. The wall and the unfortunate guard both disappeared as Corvo's grenade went of. Immediately following that the three marines dashed in to the room, effectively flanking their enemies. The 1st floor of the building had once been a lobby of sorts, with stairs to the upper levels on the center of the room. With all the guards there down the marines advanced to the next floor.

In his mind Corvo once more cursed the Inquisitor and his bad briefing. Now they had to breach into every room, carefully incapacitate everyone with bolt pistols, then check for the lieutenant and kill the rest. However the moment they stepped to the second floor they were met with hail of autogun fire. Acting with instinct Corvo opened his hand and asked for a grenade.

 

"I hope you know what you're doing" Jan said as he gave the grenade to Corvo.

 

With the certainty that only thousands of repeats give you Corvo primed the explosive and threw it. The Autogun fire stopped as the guards tried to run, but it was already too late. With a deafening explosion the grenade went of, taking many of the guards with it. With the guards gone the seven marines were again able to continue onwards the second floor that consisted of an empty hallway leading to a large wooden pairdoor.

 

"Jan fire through the lock"

 

"Affirmative"

 

For a moment all was quiet, only for that silence to be broken by the sound of bolter being fired.

The bolt round bursted right through the door's lock allowing Corvo to push through the doors with bolt pistol in hand.

Once in the room he scanned the men in there, six in total with one wearing a barret. Corvo run right to the man wearing the barret tackling him down to the ground. The five other men quickly draw thei weapons and aimed at Corvo, only for them to be cut down by Januc and Har who now revealed their positions on the cafe across the street. With deadly accuracy the two eagle eyed marksmen felled all five guards in quick succession.

 

With the 2^nd floor cleared Jan Voxed to Inquisitor Staga, inviting him to interrogate the prisoner. While the inquisitor crossed the street he saw how hostile troops were advancing their way, having apparently realized that their command position was compromised from the sound of bolt fire.

 

“Traitors and heretics are advancing towards us. Seems that your lavish noisiness has alerted our enemy, space marine” Staga said watching directly at Corvo who was monitored the situation from the second floor window.

If I were to shoot that man right here, right now would anyone notice? Heck would my men even care?

Like reading his brothers thoughts Jan stepped to Corvo’s side and warned him.

 

“I know what you are thinking brother, but don’t do it. Not yet at least. You do remember that the inquisitor is Omikron class asset?”

 

“Yes yes of course I do remember that. It’s just that this mission would have been so much easier without him” Corvo answered turning to face his brother.

 

“That might be but without him we wouldn’t get anything out of that traitor over there” Jan said nodding towards the captured lieutenant who was being hold at the ground by Zeno.

 

Soon they could hear the Inquisitor heavy steps on the stairs and then on the small hallway littered with body parts from the guards torn apart by the grenade. Arriving at the room Staga quickly went through the room, an old office, with his eyes.

 

“You may be loud but atleast you get the job done” Staga said casually. Then he walked straight to the captured office and talked to him “Let’s take a look at you mind then shall we?”

As a response he only received crazed growling, but Staga didn’t care, instead ordering the man to be risen to his knees. Once Zeno had forced the man to rise to his knees Staga took hold of his cheeks and gazed to his eyes with grim resolve only an inquisitor could have.

 

All of the marines on the room turned to look at the silent interrogation happening before them, with only sign of anything happening at all being that the Lieutenants eyes grew more maddened every second. Then all of a sudden Staga let go of the man and the man turned slack, as if the inquisitor had sucken the very life from him. Then he took a notebook from his pocket and started to write notes while instructing the marines in the room: “You can let go of the Lieutenant Krain marine, he is already dead.” Immediately as Zeno let go of the man, he dropped to floor as a lifeless husk.

 

“The good news is that we got what we wanted. I now know the location of your nemesis, Brisus the mad. However you might want to take position around this building, as heretical scum is quickly approaching”

The Inquisitors words spurred quick movement amongst the eight marines, with Jan leading fire team Gladius to take positions on the ground floor and Corvo and his two men taking position on the 2^nd. Har and Januc would stay on their original position at the second floor of the café, ready to trap the approaching traitors on a crossfire of bolter shells. As they moved to position Corvo noticed for the first time how few acolytes Staga actually had with him. His ragged group looked like beggars who had been given weapons. The seven acolytes seemed to use multitude of weapons, ranging from hotshot lasguns to grenade launchers. Three of his acolytes, a pair of ex arbites and apparently a slum dweller were ordered to take positions on the roof of the two story building, as their pair of hotshot lasguns and stormbolter would most certainly help keeping the traitors at bay.

 

Just as Corvo was leaving the office room Staga had now settled in he heard one more remark from the Inquisitor. “Johann contact Roul Valectus and order them to send our Stormcraft here”

So that’s how were going to get out of there. Stormcraft will land at the top of this building and fly us out of here. Supposing staga won’t do anything foolish that is…

 

 

III

 

First it seemed that the hordes of traitor guardsmen would immediately throw themselves at the Viper Legion positions, but they showed suprising amount of discipline for servants of the dark gods, and instead chose to hold off on the surrounding buildings, preparing their forces. The problem was that it would was only matter of time that someone would realize that Januc and Har were hiding on the café. Suddenly firing begun on that other house and Corvo ran from the stairwell he was positioned towards the office room he could see the café from. Once he arrived he saw how Staga’s men had already opened fire to support the two stranded marines. However he was well aware of the fact that despite their mighty power armour, space marines could be overwhelmed with large numbers and grenades. So he Voxed Januc:

 

“Januc, Har get out of there! Jump through the window while we cover you and run here”

Just as he ended speaking Januc nodded to him through the broken window of the café and immediately after jumped through the empty window frame. Har tried to repeat his battle brother’s action, but just as he was climing through the window a grenade exploded right below him. His horrifying screams echoed through the Vox as the traitor guard closed in and fired time after time again. While it couldn’t be seen, Corvo knew that his battle brother tried to fight back, as evident from the sound of boltgun firing repeatedly. Soon however the sound was cut short by a second explosion that shook the café.

 

While his brother had desperately fought on on the café, Januc had not only been able to land safely to the street, but also run to the relative safety of the another building. Soon however a battle cry shook the air as the traitor guardsmen chanted the name of their leader, Brisus and charged onwards from every direction. Everywhere the marines, and Staga’s acolytes opened fire and poured fire upon the guardsmen charging forwards. Corvo had moved back to the stairwell and fired from there upon those trying to enter through the main doors. First he, Jan and the other marines fired only single bolt rounds, removing entire limbs on each shot. Soon however the flood of traitors became too large to control and they changed first to short burst and then to full auto.

 

Despite all their efforts the sheer amount of enemies meant that bit by bit they got a foothold on the building. Hrain, the marine charged with guarding the hole on the wall made by Corvo, let out a scream about being overwhelmed and then perished in a blinding melta explosion.

With their flank now open Jan ordered a full retreat to the upper level, as Corvo and his men did their best to cover them. Despite Corvo and his comrades pouring magazine after magazine on to the incoming horde it just kept coming.

 

One traitor was even fast enough to strike Corvo with his bayonet, but in retaliation his face was punched in by power armoured fist. Just as the man fell to the ground holding his broken face a sole autogun round hit Corvo’s lence penetrating it. As he fell down he felt his mind glide away. Zeno saw his fire team leader fall down and rushed to his side

 

“Leo cover us” Zeno said taking a hold from Corvo. Then while dragging him back towards the office he shouted “We need to leave, there’s just too many of them!”

 

While Zeno dragged him away Leo fought off the closest enemies, shooting the first and striking the second with the stern of his bolter. Then as more rushed towards him he fired his bolter, but to his shock it only made a striking click noise.

 

“Damn I need to reload, someone cover me”

 

Then a loud hum filled the building. While the traitor guardsmen fearfully looked for the source of the noice, the marines took the chance and fully retreated. Once in office they were greeted by not only Staga, but Librarion minor Marcian Rubicon too.

 

“Get to the stormcraft we’re leaving soon” Marcian said

As an answer Zeno only muttered “Gladly” as he dragged Corvo away.

While the rest escaped Marcian smited those daring enough to enter the office, scaring away the rest. Then as the both fire teams and the Inquisitors remaining men had gotten to the craft he followed, closing the ships hatch behind him.

 

“Try to patch him up will you? Thanks to the information the inquisitor got to us we can end Brisus before the day is over”…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OK so, i'm not going to lie, this was a hard challenge for me. Not only was this the first time i tried to write a story in english, it was also the first time i did it in the universe of 40k. I also had to cut huge parts from my original plan away due to realizing how long it would be (the fact that i realized yesterday that i had only two, and not twelve days to finish writing most certainly didn't help). Then a tried my best to sow the rest together. Needless to say if this has thought me anything, it's that writing stories isn't necessarily my thing.

Oh well now it's down and the whole Iron Gauntlet is finished. I suppose i survived.

3000+ words

 

EDIT: After realizing that there was no upper limit to the words i added in the ending i had previously cut.

[Tarvek Val]

Wow, it's very impressive that this is your first story in English! I applaud you!   That said, I'm really curious as to the motives of Librarian Marcian Rubicon. I would love to know why some / most (?) of the Viper Legion turned traitor! Was it because of the lure of Chaos, greed for xenon artifacts, disillusion towards the practices of the Imperium? If that could be expanded, the story would be even more wonderful! 

Regardless, nice work.

[Legionare]

Thank you for your kind words. I'm really glad you enjoyed the story! When i started working on the Viper Legion i had just read HH books Legion and Deliverance lost, and thus wanted to somehow include Alpha Legion in my Index Astartes chapter. I achieved this by having the Viper Legion be formed around a sole survivor of a chapter destroyed in the pale wasting. This survivor however was in truth a Alpha Legion infiltrator, who began corrupting the chapter from the inside, manipulating and brainwashing new recruits to the chapter.

 

Process of corrupting a chapter in secrecy would slowly advance with larger and larger percentage of the chapter falling under the influence of chaos. By the time of Bifrost uprising, every single member of the Vipers except Augustined had fallen. This story is supposed to show the beginnings of the final act of a plan five millenia in the making. How the last light within the Vipers dies out and they prepare to reveal their true loyalty...

 

Hopefully this answers your question. Now that my interest in this story is rekindled i might even continue it like i had planned 3 months ago.

[Tarvek Val]

That reminds me of one of the BL short stories I've read... A Chapter's recruits are slowly corrupted by Chaos until the entire Chapter ends up being destroyed from within. The Long Games at Carcharias, that's what it was. A good read, and one that might provide some additional guidance for the development of your own story.

[Legionare]

I haven't gotten the chance to read that one, but i'll make sure to do that in the future. Thanks for the recommendation. Hopefully my Vipers aren't too similar to the chapter in that story.

[Tarvek Val]

No, it's different enough for sure; I just thought it made for quite an interesting parallel between the two! Hopefully you can read it sometime!